Google executive chairman arrives in North Korea

Source: AP-Excite

By JEAN H. LEE

PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) - The Google chairman wants a first-hand look at North Korea's economy and social media in his private visit Monday to the communist nation, his delegation said, despite misgivings in Washington over the timing of the trip.

Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of one of the world's biggest Internet companies, is the highest-profile U.S. executive to visit North Korea - a country with notoriously restrictive online policies - since young leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago. His visit has drawn criticism from the U.S. State Department because it comes only weeks after a controversial North Korean rocket launch; it has also prompted speculation about what the businessman hopes to accomplish.

Schmidt arrived on a commercial Air China flight with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who has traveled more than a half-dozen times to North Korea over the past 20 years.

Richardson, speaking ahead of the flight from Beijing, called the trip a private, humanitarian mission.

Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt, second from right, and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, left, leave after their meeting at a hotel in Beijing Monday, Jan. 7, 2013. Schmidt, who is part of a delegation led by Richardson, is scheduled to leave Monday on a commercial flight bound for North Korea, a country considered to have the world’s most restrictive Internet policies. (AP Photo/Andy Wong)